13 replies to this topic

[3596130702174734600]

I don't know if this has already been proposed but why not switch aqua/frost nova respectfully? Wizards don't need the support of frost nova like sorcerers do, and wizards could easily benefit from having aqua deal extra damage with their slightly buff Magic power. This was something I found to be odd when I first became a sorcerer. Frost diver is.... ok and effective but frost nova just screams "USE ME WITH LORD OF VERMILLION" cause it makes sense, while lots of the wizards don't even bother with frost nova since they aren't pvp players (and even then it doesn't really help that much)

 

I wouldn't mind as I play both classes and just find it odd that both those skills are nearly never used for that class because it doesnt really suit them, switching them out would help both parties

[Plushy]

I don't mind it that way how it is now, you just need to cooperate with a Wizzard and i have fun with it.

With your idea Sorcerer would be more powerful in colo and people will scream again "Nerf Sorc".

So from my side: Please don't do it.

[3596130702174734600]

I rarely see wizards just due to how low their DPS is in general when compared to rangers/assassins. On top of that most of them don't have frost nova for the reason i pointed out, there is no benefit for it. 

The state that wizards/sorcerers are in, they both need this. Wizards need more dps and sorcerers can't fight people off of them, they are the only class that lacks some sort of defense skill. Wizards still have teleport and ice wall while sorcerers... just get killed so in terms of balancing it is something a sorcerer still needs. Plus, everyone's burst damage is way stronger than sorcs, I am barely pushing 20k transformed while my friend warrior hits 30k transform as a tank build, we are already nerfed.

[AhinaReyoh]

In the current state of the game, getting Summon Aqua would be a terrible trade since summons have no hit rate whatsoever. It'd basically be Sorcerers dropping a useless skill on Wizards in exchange for a skill that works really well with Sorcerers. If you really want the area freezing then get an Embus of Ruin, since it'll even keep things eternally frozen when you get the cooldown low enough.

 

Frost Nova is also one of Wizard's few defensive tools in PvP, since Teleport by itself doesn't buy you much time and Ice Wall's cooldown is terrible. Sorcerers can heal themselves, which pre-AoV would let them tank up to 2 people with just Healing Wave while a Wizard would drop in seconds. I haven't bothered with PvP post-AoV though since the balance is too broken, so I don't know what the dynamics are like now.

[3596130702174734600]

Let's assume that Aqua works, because it isn't likely for this attack to remain broken for that long. (ignoring the first post because this is a suggestion based on both skills working properly) I play both a sorc and wiz in the colosseum and have managed before AOV and after AOV to keep  my undergeared Wiz alive longer than my full pvp sorc. I can go to the fourth round without dying with my wiz but yet my sorc (who can heal) dies instantly and has no time to try and defend herself. 

Wizards have ice wall which allows them with water emblem and explosion to heal without taking ANY damage at all. That's 50% plus another 5% without as much as getting touched or bothered by DoTs. Sorcerers will be vulnerable to everything as they are trying to heal themselves and without criticals they can't as much as hold off a priest before going down. I rarely use frost nova for defensive uses with my wizard because teleporting and ice walling does more for the situation. A lot of times I am getting hit by range attacks so frost nova does nothing for anyone outside of the range, and certainly doesn't help nay if it misses, which it did a lot before and after AOV. Once again... sorcs just have healing. Wizards have 2 solid defensive skills with a hit dependent one (ignoring the damage reduction from water emblem though sorcs can use it, it serves wizards better), while sorcerers just stand still and hope to get lucky crit heals to survive. They can't fight back or anything, they just have to hope that someone's health drop low enough from someone else attacking so they can KS them and then hope to survive more, which doesn't work often as 1 of the 4 people attackign you will stun you. 

 

Sorcerers lack defense in every sense of the word. Anyone who plays sorcerers just go all in and whenever they get hit, just rush their target and go for the kill because they are dying 80% of the time rather they do anything about it.

 

I also did farm embus of ruin for the simple reason of why i am making this topic. Sorcerers need the skill more than wizards do.  It fits their playstyle better while getting them a good option against their worst matchup the assassins. PVP wise it would have broken them, but the current state they are in, they would still be behind all of the rangers/assassins/priest in the colosseum doing work to everyone with their buff dps versus the sorcerers... flatlined DPS.

[Greven79]

In my opinion, Wizards and Sorcerers need a much more tremendous change than just swapping Aqua and Ice Nova. They are too similar right now and offer no real choices in character builds.

 

F.e. why not giving the Wizard:

• Jupitel Thunder
• Lord of Vermilion
• Varetyr Spear

and the Sorcerer gets

• Seal Explosion
• Teleport
• Levitation

instead.

 

Yeah, this is just a provocative statement... so feel free to shoot back.

 

The intention behind it however is to make people sensitive to what is "commonly excepted", but not necessarily a "must-have". It is expected that every class ought to have exactly one ultimate attack, neither none nor more than one. So whereas other games allow for different builds per character and therefore more than one ultimate (f.e. having a real choice between being an Ice Mage, Fire Mage or a Mage shooting Lightnings around), RO2 only ofters one choice.

 

Before the AoV patch, this wasn't necessarily a real issue, since the animation time for most top-tier skills made them equal in DPS to the basic attack skill. You could go for Flame Explosion, but spamming Fireballs would have been equally effective, bypassing the need to charge up - and to survive that long.

 

Other classes beside Wizards solved this in a better way. F.e. a Priest could either play Full Support and would get an "ultimate" or go for the DPS role and get a different "ultimate" instead. Well even there, it's not perfect (just assume Sacrament would grant +30% Heal, and -30% damage skills, making all healing skills weaker by the additional 20% granted), but you might get an impression of what I mean.

 

Such a Wizard as I've mentioned above could at least choose between lighning or fire. Add a decent DoT to Frost Diver and Frost Nova and the latter could be the "ultimate" for the ice tree. The Sorcerer on contrast wouldn't have an ultimate attack at all, making it more the jack-of-all-trades. However, if you make Seal Explosion better by miles, he could have multiple "ultimates" depending on the chosen active Seal.

 

So it's just a provocation, but has a sincere background.

Edited by Greven79, 30 January 2014 - 02:06 PM.

[3596130702174734600]

It is a good idea in theory, but the problem would be then giving full DPS sorcerers any true DPS. They wouldn't have any, instead they would just be using explosion and just throwing fireballs since they have no other attacks in their tree to use. They would never survive in colosseum, and couldn't do anything besides support meaning that leveling up would be a pain without a friend. Plus the wizard actually wouldn't be able to truly utilitize those since he would either use fireballs to gain his fire ultimate or would instead freeze someone and use VS. In practical play it would really just be either a pve build or a pvp built, a hybrid built would be really poor as neither would do the other job as well, and taking away would really drain away from them. 

 

I still think just switching out aqua and frost nova will do both classes justice. It would allow for wizards to increase their DPS a slightly bit more and would allow for sorcerers to have a defensive skill and to be able to take out mobs. At the moment a sorcerer needs embus to really put some damage on a mob.

In my opinion, Wizards and Sorcerers need a much more tremendous change than just swapping Aqua and Ice Nova. They are too similar right now and offer no real choices in character builds.

 

F.e. why not giving the Wizard:

• Jupitel Thunder
• Lord of Vermilion
• Varetyr Spear

and the Sorcerer gets

• Seal Explosion
• Teleport
• Levitation

instead.

 

Yeah, this is just a provocative statement... so feel free to shoot back.

 

The intention behind it however is to make people sensitive to what is "commonly excepted", but not necessarily a "must-have". It is expected that every class ought to have exactly one ultimate attack, neither none nor more than one. So whereas other games allow for different builds per character and therefore more than one ultimate (f.e. having a real choice between being an Ice Mage, Fire Mage or a Mage shooting Lightnings around), RO2 only ofters one choice.

 

Before the AoV patch, this wasn't necessarily a real issue, since the animation time for most top-tier skills made them equal in DPS to the basic attack skill. You could go for Flame Explosion, but spamming Fireballs would have been equally effective, bypassing the need to charge up - and to survive that long.

 

Other classes beside Wizards solved this in a better way. F.e. a Priest could either play Full Support and would get an "ultimate" or go for the DPS role and get a different "ultimate" instead. Well even there, it's not perfect (just assume Sacrament would grant +30% Heal, and -30% damage skills, making all healing skills weaker by the additional 20% granted), but you might get an impression of what I mean.

 

Such a Wizard as I've mentioned above could at least choose between lighning or fire. Add a decent DoT to Frost Diver and Frost Nova and the latter could be the "ultimate" for the ice tree. The Sorcerer on contrast wouldn't have an ultimate attack at all, making it more the jack-of-all-trades. However, if you make Seal Explosion better by miles, he could have multiple "ultimates" depending on the chosen active Seal.

 

So it's just a provocation, but has a sincere background.

 

[AhinaReyoh]

One of the problems is that Summon Aqua is basically an uncontrollable single-target DoT, and Wizards already have Fire Flower as a quick and easy to spread DoT, plus Fireball for a heavy single-target DoT. This is compared to Sorcerers who had no DoT before the Lightning Bolt change, thus Aqua was their stand-in. Given that Wizards already have DoTs, unless Aqua did significantly high damage, I don't think most Wizards would bother to even put a point in it except to unlock Ice Wall. And if the hit rate is fixed, then there would be pets that do more damage then Aqua anyway, with shorter cooldown and without costing skill points.

 

I think the problem here is that Summon Aqua was designed early in the game without any forethought to how it would work with game mechanics added to the game later. If there's anything that needs to change, it's that Summon Aqua either needs to be revised, or replaced with something else.

 

(Also on a side note, in the beta, Frost Nova was actually a Mage skill.)

[3596130702174734600]

You can always summon aqua and pets at the same time. I ususally summon aqua first then the pet so they are both ready around the same time, so free damage is still free damage. I am not saying they would invest stupidly into it but there will be more, practical, wizard builds that can utilize it over the sorcerers. I haven't seen any builds except for crazy unpractical dps builds where sorcs would put a few points into aqua. Sorcerers rarely even use aqua to begin with, yea some of us toss him out but really it isn't that helpful, plus it isn't a DoT so it misses on it own anyway. Aqua would do a little more damage in a wizard hand than a sorc. He could use fire emblem explosion and right before it end summon aqua who will have a the power he had before losing the buff, which is better than what sorcs can do. 

 

I agree, he should be patched/revised. The falcon is 100% better in every way on the ranger in terms of attack speed, damage, and mobility. Aqua stands there in the colosseum looking crazy, while falcon follows the person it targeted. Aqua (assuming it worked the way it should) should have either a dps increase or increase duration on the field. Something to make him worth while.

 

(Cool tidbit, wish they kept it)

[Greven79]

It is a good idea in theory, but the problem would be then giving full DPS sorcerers any true DPS. They wouldn't have any, instead they would just be using explosion and just throwing fireballs since they have no other attacks in their tree to use. They would never survive in colosseum, and couldn't do anything besides support meaning that leveling up would be a pain without a friend.

 

That's basically not true. What is a Varetyr Spear other than a Lightning Bolt with more damage and another visual animation?

 

And this is the whole point here!

 

Let's assume that a Seal Explosion on a lightning seal would cause the next 3 lightning spell to be casted in a very quick succession? Then, you would fire a volley / salvo of 3 Lightning Bolts, summing up to 915% damage or a Thunderstorm for 716% damage. Assuming a 30sec cooldown for the Seal Explosion, you would have 2 good "finisher" even suitable for colo.

 

All in all, every "basic spell" can be upgraded to be a finisher, either by increasing damage, casting speed or adding powerful side-effects. And this is what a Sorcerer could do.

 

Beside that, you don't need to have a powerful finisher to be good in colo. As a Ranger (before AoV I admit), you could simply run around, casting poison arrow, impact arrow and maybe some charge arrows from time to time. Your "finisher" was a serie of double strafings. Nothing else needed. Vulcan Arrow wasn't that good and Falcons powerful, but quite slow.

 

You can do the same thing for other spells // elements // seals as well.

 

Fire Bolt - better starts at 0.5sec casting time

Fireball - has an impact radius instead

Seal Explosion - no casting time for Firebolt; more damage for Fireball (includes burn damage)

 

Cold Bolt - better starts at 1.0sec casting time; slows & deals minor DoT over time

Frost Diver- immobilizes; major DoT

Seal of Ice - replaces Seal of Water; longer slow effect; more damage or less mana

Seal Explosion - Cold Bolt has chance to cause a free Frost Diver; Frost Diver gets more DoT and longer duration

 

Lightning Bolt - no DoT, better additional damage on crit.

Thunderstorm - I'd prefer the "CoA Lightning here"

Seal of Lightning - more damage on crit. Chance to stun on crit.

Seal Explosion - Casting a volley or maybe extreme damage on crit.

 

Healing Wave - I would like to see an AoE heal over time instead

Soul Cleanse - Should actually work and be an AoE centered around you (no targeting)

Deluge - No increased max. HP

Seal of Water - /like the Earth Emblem now => better heal and heal over time chance

Seal Explosion - further Improved healing & heal spells regenerate SP as well

 

Earth Shield - Immunity to crit. hits; maybe resistance vs. slow effects

Land of Recovery - no HP regeneration, but further increases all healing effects; minor damage reduction

Soul Bind - I'd like to see more levels that further decrease cooldown and prevents MP loss

Seal of Earth - grants a damage reduction

Seal Explosion - higher effect on all earth spells, especially the damage reduction

 

Teleport - as before

Levitation - replaced with powerful slow effect (a bit like earthworm or Shield Boomerang)

Seal of Wind - higher movement speed

Seal Explosion - Short boost in movement speed for all allies (like priest - Increased Agility now)

If there is room, you could implement a Whirlwind (similar to a Falcon attack)

 

So I believe this could be a very versatile class, well suited for colo (mainly ice, fire, lightning) and a very great support char (water, earth, wind)

 

If you remember the quest for your "prestige class" becoming a sorcerer, you had a time critical move mission, so it fits to be able to cast a Seal of Wind thereafter.

 

Plus the wizard actually wouldn't be able to truly utilitize those since he would either use fireballs to gain his fire ultimate or would instead freeze someone and use VS. In practical play it would really just be either a pve build or a pvp built, a hybrid built would be really poor as neither would do the other job as well, and taking away would really drain away from them.

 

When I play a Priest, I can either heal or deal damage. Whenever I stop healing and casting a Ray of Genesis during a boss fight instead, I might risk that someone dies. I also have to choose whether I prefer Holy Light or Heal. If I go hybrid (and I don't mean DPS+Reno here), neither will I get the full heal potential, nor a full dps potential.

 

Same can be true for Wizards. You OUGHT to choose whether you like to focus on Lightning spells, playing a highly mobile, fast casting character, choose Fire to become a "power yourself up with each cast" having also the best AoEs or focussing on Ice, becoming a master of control, where noone can ever get into melee with you.

 

To further improve the experience, you could implement that Fire spells remove the "protection against freeze" but also ending all other frost effects; whereas cold ends the "burn DoT". In this way, you could either focus mainly on one element, playing a "full fire" or "full ice" mage or go hybrid and ombine all 3 elements (freeze + shock and after freeze ends, burn to be able to freeze again), what would require a certain "cast order".

 

It would be wonderful to see Colo with this change, since a Firemage could end the Frost Diver of a Frost Mage, whereas the Frostmage could end the burning effect....

 

I still think just switching out aqua and frost nova will do both classes justice. It would allow for wizards to increase their DPS a slightly bit more and would allow for sorcerers to have a defensive skill and to be able to take out mobs. At the moment a sorcerer needs embus to really put some damage on a mob.

 

I can't really agree with your idea of swapping Aqua and Ice Nova. Currently, a Wizard has no water spells, whereas the Sorcerer has no frost spell after the Seal (in the Sorcerer skill list). Switching Aqua and Ice Nova would remove this simple design concept.

 

In my opinion, I see a Wizard more like a DPS class and the Sorcerer more like a versatility class. Having Ice Nova and the new "hit 10" Thunderstorm is pretty cool. Aqua on contrast, fit's more to the Sorcerer in my opinion. Like the DoTs for the Priest, Aqua can be a reliable source of damage if you've decided to play a Full-Support Sorcerer. Cast it once, heal thereafter. Getting Ice Nova instead, would be of no use.

 

So why not swapping Lord of Vermillion and Seal Explosion instead?

 

Then the Wizard would have both AoE Lightning spells for maximum use and full fun with Frost Nova; whereas the Sorcerer would even more be focussed on the "single-target, instant damage" concept.The current Seal Explosion fit's nicely as well. You won't have all the fire spells the Wizard hs, no Firestarter, no Pyromancy, etc. But you would get a temporary boost instead that adds more damage to fire spells and increases burn.... totally replacing the wizard counterparts.

 

 

 

Edited by Greven79, 31 January 2014 - 01:29 PM.

[lokasenna]

Just that a) Firestarter does nothing and b ) Pyromancy increases Haste, which does nothing for caster classes. Also if you remove Seal Explosion from Wizards we'd lose our heal If you use Inferno (AoE DoT) + Meteor Storm (casting this AoE on a mob with Firestarter makes it inflict ~18% more damage) you have somewhat the same effect as LoV + Freeze.

 

I see very few PVE Wizards that take DPS skills from the Ice or Lightning tree simply because our ultimate requires continuous casting of Fire spells. Now if you give us Varetyr and Jupitel, I'm pretty sure people will go 'OP' and so on, especially now that you can buy Skill Points.

 

I vote they fix DoTs/magical damage/hit first, then we can see which skill fits which class better.

Edited by lokasenna, 31 January 2014 - 07:49 PM.

[3596130702174734600]

I am running with the current design for the pre-AOV built in mind. Not saying we can't take AOV changes in mind, but there isn't THAT high of a design change for both of these characters flow. 

 

The long list of changes you described go way more into an Alteration of the sorcerer class versus both of the classes. Keep in mind that Wizards get water emblem too, so oddly you just made them healers. You would have to change both trees of them entirely because they share several of the same necessary skills in their later builds. Not that I don't mind some of the changes, the idea here is just to improve those  2 setups. Honestly answer, how many wizards use frost nova? I run a wizard, i rarely use frost nova and when i do it is time wasted for having to reposition myself, that's just me though. Aqua is similar to a DOT but at the end of the day, it isn't a DoT. It doesn't do the same damage over a period of time to the same person and can be casted to multiple people, it attacks just one person with the same hit rate as the sorcerer. So, though it is similar, it still isn't and rangers have 3 dots with a falcon so trying to argue that wizards already have too many DOTs is out of the question. 

 

This is still a suggestion keep in mind. I would really enjoy my magic damage being fixed cause at this moment, I am doing no damage compared to STR classes. 

[Greven79]

Just that a) Firestarter does nothing and b ) Pyromancy increases Haste, which does nothing for caster classes. Also if you remove Seal Explosion from Wizards we'd lose our heal :o If you use Inferno (AoE DoT) + Meteor Storm (casting this AoE on a mob with Firestarter makes it inflict ~18% more damage) you have somewhat the same effect as LoV + Freeze.

 

I see very few PVE Wizards that take DPS skills from the Ice or Lightning tree simply because our ultimate requires continuous casting of Fire spells. Now if you give us Varetyr and Jupitel, I'm pretty sure people will go 'OP' and so on, especially now that you can buy Skill Points.

 

I vote they fix DoTs/magical damage/hit first, then we can see which skill fits which class better.

 

on B)

 

"Haste" was once a sum-up word for both attack speed and casting time (whereas the first part was questionable, not the latter). Therefore the Pyromancy reduced the time, the casting bar needed to fill up. Sadly, I haven't checked this post-AoV.

 

on a)

 

15% Firestarter was once a balanced DoT, If you compare the pre-AoV statistics:

 

Priest Oratio = max. 12%

Warrior/Knight Head Crush = max.10%

Ranger Fire Trap = max 10% AoE, trap characteristics

Assassin/Rogue Poisoning Weapon = max. 15% with a 30% chance to trigger on any attack skill

 

And so on....

 

If Firestarter sucks right now, it's more a bug than actually intented.

 

Also keep in mind that the Wizard has two other DoTs:

Fireball = max. 17% (30% of the starting 56%)

Firebolt = max. 19-20% (40% of the starting 49%)

 

Those skills didn't work like most other DoTs, since they could actually crit. (if the initial spell was a critical hit).

 

Healing

 

Yes, if I would take Seal Explosion away, the Wizard would lose the "insta-heal". But that shouldn't be such a problem. The Ranger still doesn't have healing skills at all and the Assassin pre-AoV had none either.

 

Pre-AoV there was a "balance" (better call it concept) between the Assassin and the Rogue:

 

Whereas the Assassin had a 50% damage reduction that could be used every 40sec (basically in 1/3 of the time with enough vigor) which was MUCH better than any similar skill from other classes, the Rogue had a powerful heal skill (60% within 10sec every 40sec) and a cooldown reset. The latter was also much better than any similar effect from other classes (Knight Aura Heal = 18% every 20sec; Warrior Tension Relax = 60% over 20sec every 120sec; Beastmaster Survival = 20% every 40sec)

 

This brings us back to the Wizard: Similar to the Beastmaster, the Wizard has a 100% damage reduction skill called Ice Wall. This skill alone could protect the wizard from deadly boss AoEs that would have killed Rangers, Sorcerers, Rogues or Soulmakers (classes without dam.red. skills).

 

The only problem was, that the cooldown of Ice Wall was just a bit unfair (if compared to a Deluge on contrast f.e.).

 

Therefore, it would be no problem to reduce the cooldown of such a spell drastically (starting at 180sec down to 90sec) to make up for the loss of Seal Explosion.

 

I see very few PVE Wizards that take DPS skills from the Ice or Lightning tree simply because our ultimate requires continuous casting of Fire spells. Now if you give us Varetyr and Jupitel, I'm pretty sure people will go 'OP' and so on, especially now that you can buy Skill Points.

 

The goal of my suggestion is to make 3 skill trees possible, not just one.

(Btw. Pyromancy wasn't a great skill pre-AoV => a max. of 10% casting time reduction was quite worthless and I'm not sure what 20% haste actually means post-AoV)

 

Of course would still need multiple spells to get to the ultimate skill. A Varetyr Spear f.e. isn't such useful against any targets that aren't frozen. If you want Jupitel Thunder to be of some use, you need to trigger it for no casting time.

 

You can't prevent that players would try to reach multiple "finishers" as you can't prevent Priests from leveling Ray of Genesis AND Sanctuary f.e. But this isn't necessarily an issue, if you make the skills dependant to other skills, reducing the impact.(Varetyr Spear requires the boss to be in a "frigid" state), etc.

 

If you've read my previous answers carefully, you should have noticed that I suggested Frost Diver and Ice Nova getting a decent DoT and that Fire and Ice would end these kinds of effects if they are from the opposite element (fire end ice-DoT and frigid state, ice ends burn DoTs). So if you would like to get multiple "finisher" skills, you have to take this into account as well.

 

I vote they fix DoTs/magical damage/hit first, then we can see which skill fits which class better.

 

That's for sure, no doubt. My suggestion was more a theory-crafting if WarpPortal would have nothing else to do.

Edited by Greven79, 02 February 2014 - 02:36 PM.

[Greven79]

The long list of changes you described go way more into an Alteration of the sorcerer class versus both of the classes. Keep in mind that Wizards get water emblem too, so oddly you just made them healers. You would have to change both trees of them entirely because they share several of the same necessary skills in their later builds.

 

Not that I don't mind some of the changes, the idea here is just to improve those  2 setups. Honestly answer, how many wizards use frost nova? I run a wizard, i rarely use frost nova and when i do it is time wasted for having to reposition myself, that's just me though.

 

I change both classes in a huge way, that's right. I tired out both classes pre-AoV and was quite dissappointed. For the Wizard, the Ice and Lightning spells felt misplaced, whereas the Sorcerer didn't played out well as a support class, More like a DPS class that accidentially can heal all within a certain radius. Even deluge felt and was used more like some sort of damage reduction for yourself. I bet if LoR would have been like a Renovatio and Deluge would have have been an Assumptio instead, you would have made most Sorcerers much more happy.

 

If you look at the basic skills, there are enough changes already:

 

Firebolt: lower casting time (1s => 0.5s)

This makes Pyromancy more useful, because you could reach the maximum "charge" level faster. Other triggers (instant fireball or burn) would happen more often as well.

 

Fireball: added explosion radius

This would really make this spell shine. Whereas the fireball doesn't deal enough damage right now to justifythe high casting time, it could be a beast if you manage to group up opponents. This supports the role of the Fire Mage to be a Master against multiple enemies.

 

Frost Diver: Added DoT

Cold Bolt: added DoT but increased casting time (0.5s => 1s)

Two early accessible DoTs with the same duration as the "slow" / "freeze" effect. This would further increase the "first hit" potential and since those DoTs are at a 100% chance, grant much better control in general.

 

Ice Emblem: replaces Water Emblem

Therefore both the Mage and the Wizard would lose the healing capability. If SP costs are fixed, this wouldn't be a drawback, especially if you would reduce the cooldown of Ice Wall instead.

 

Ice Nova: added mass DoT

If you maxed out both the Emblem and the Nova, this will be a defining gameplay option. A 24-30sec cooldown ice nova (with vigor) and a 6-10sec freezing time, dealing a DoT at the same time would be really efficient.

I once knew a Wizard that used Ice Nova often, so I disagree that it is a bad spell. It was especially useful in colo to stop all those fast moving, vulnerable classes and prevent melee classes to get in contact (combine it with a 20sec Teleport to get behind the opponents). In raids, it was rendered useless once Embus was around, but in pre-AoV, it was the best spell to stop a mass of adds to get in contact with you (particular well if those adds confuse you with their melee attack that would prevent further skill use). I even saw tornados and abyss frozen in place.

I basically added the only thing that I think was missing... a DoT that deals damage even if you reposition yourself.

 

BTW: In my opinion, it would be better if Cold Bolt wouldn't give a 30% chance for +100% damage, but rather a 40% damage boost for the same duration as the slow effect.

 

Lightning Bolt: More damage on crit.

I never understood why Lightning would deal a DoT whereas Ice isn't. You can cast a Lightning Bolt in less than a second, so it's likely that a hit resets the DoT cooldown instead, also resetting the time until it ticks again to 2sec. (That's the reason why a Ranger Multishot wouldn't deal any DoT if used every second, because it would reset the DoT ticks to 2sec every 1sec).

 

Since the crit. damage bonus would make you want to increase your AGI, it could also lead towards a totally different build than you would with a fire or ice tree.

 

All in all, I think this would change the Wizard tremendously, you might even want to add more than one into your raids. I admit however, that I didn't make any suggestions about other fire spells of the Wizard, like Inferno, Firestarter or Pyromancy. Basically, I don't really enjoy their current implementation either.

 

 

Aqua is similar to a DOT but at the end of the day, it isn't a DoT. It doesn't do the same damage over a period of time to the same person and can be casted to multiple people, it attacks just one person with the same hit rate as the sorcerer. So, though it is similar, it still isn't and rangers have 3 dots with a falcon so trying to argue that wizards already have too many DOTs is out of the question.

 

Aqua does fulfill a similar same role as a Falcon Assault of a Ranger (especially if combined with an immobilizing snare.) and deals similar amounts of damage (if it works properly). The only real drawback of Aqua is that it can't move (but it has a ranged attack). In raids, this isn't a drawback, since bosses rarely move either. So only the cooldown-reset of the Ranger makes the Falcons superior. (Keep in mind that the falcon also attacks only one creature at a time).

 

WarpPortal could make Aqua mobile. In this way, the biggest drawback would be gone.

 

In my opinion however, Aqua just a lame copy from WoW. It would have made much more sense, if they would swap the place of Aqua with Foresight, making the latter a "water" spell (fits perfectly, imo) and changing Aqua into a Djinn-like creature that hurls Lightning Bolts / or spears instead. This would allow for a better combo, if this Djinn would also deal double damage to frozen enemies...

 

Edit: Current Wizard DoTs

• Firebolt - burn
• Fireball - burn
• Lightning Bolt - shock
• Firestarter / Inferno

You can stack them all.

Edited by Greven79, 02 February 2014 - 04:17 PM.